1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of networking. In particular, this invention relates to the optimization of network traffic.
2. Description of the Related Art
The performance of packet-based networks (such as the Internet) is typically constrained by the various path-selection processes in place.
Manually configured forwarding tables are not flexible enough to compensate for variations in network performance. In addition, this approach represents a significant impact on scarce skilled resources.
Dynamic Routing Protocols are used to control the vast majority of forwarding decisions on large packet-based networks. These protocols are fairly adaptable to routing failures, but do not effectively compensate for variations in network performance.
Assessment and Optimization of network traffic is also subjective: performance characteristics toward a given destination vary based on the location from which measurements are made. Each locale must identify their own local performance characteristics.
As the number of valid destination addresses increase, the feasibility of measuring performance characteristics toward all destinations in a persistent and ongoing manner decreases to nil.
Consolidating the set of all individual destination addresses into sets, or ranges of addresses significantly reduces the number of tests that must be made in a given time interval. However, in many cases, even this optimization is insufficient: the current Internet routing tables include over 100,000 different “routes”, or address range identifiers.
The performance aspects of network paths to any given address will often have similar characteristics of the network paths to a nearby address. However, the task of identifying address blocks which are acceptably similar in performance characteristic is subtle: network address ranges are typically not directly representative of the underlying network topology.
In most locations, the set of actively used address ranges is a relatively small percentage of the total address ranges available. This set of “active” routes is dynamic, and while technology does exist that can identify the set of active flows, in general these systems are constrained by both significant delays in reporting activity, as well as lack of integration into path selection systems.
Most network routing protocols in production use in the Internet are based on relatively primitive topological metrics such as “hop count” or “link costs”. Network performance metrics can include a wide variety of units and scales, which typically do not conveniently map to appropriate routing metrics.